Award Data

The Navy is developing a new type of UAS for small-deck ships that can operate from these platforms but that provide the endurance and range of a conventional fixed-wing UAS. These UASs are tail-sitting and take off and land vertically (VTOL) while flying horizontally. The Navy is seeking propulsion systems for these UASs that have high specific power, but also have reasonable efficiency (SFC). Th ...

Current VTOL UASs in development, and concepts being pursued by both commercial and military operators, require high-power delivery on takeoff and landing segments. This duty can be served with a special purpose ultra-lightweight gas turbine-alternator. For this short duty cycle, the relaxed SFC requirement opens opportunities for weight reduction strategies. This FOA’s specification for elect ...

The Navy utilizes small, crewed watercraft, e.g., the Special Operations Craft – Ravine, for a range of missions in the littoral zone. These watercrafts, while designed for high-speed operation, also require low-speed stealth operation to successfully complete all types of mission objectives. However, the existing internal combustions engines and propulsion systems currently used on these vessel ...

Sea mines are a persistent threat to naval operations. Mines are inexpensive to fabricate and easy to deploy, making them a favorite tool of our adversaries. The Navy is actively developing new countermine technologies to defeat this threat more quickly and efficiently than ever before. However, countermining operations still require manual battle damage assessment (BDA) to verify target neutraliz ...

Additive Manufacturing (AM) processes, such as laser powder bed fusion, have enabled the construction of heat exchangers with custom form factors and unique internal geometries. Topology optimization (TO) takes advantage of these unique geometries to create flow structures that have increased heat transfer effectiveness and reduced pressure drop compared to standard heat exchanger channels. The Na ...

U.S. Navy ships use systems employing superconductors for power distribution and other applications, and cryocoolers maintain the cryogenic temperatures required for superconductor operation. When cryocooler electrical power is lost or interrupted for more than a brief period (such as during power source transfer, maintenance, or unplanned events), these systems begin warming to temperatures at wh ...

Despite over 100 years of research, decompression sickness (DCS) remains the mission-limiting factor in the design and execution of many military and commercial dives. Decompression time is currently dictated by dive tables, developed around acceptable risk using population-wide statistics. In consequence, dive tables are very conservative: a table designed for a 2% DCS incidence risk is longer th ...

Tactical Navy HTS magnet applications require efficient and compact cryocoolers to maintain cryogenic temperatures for the magnet while also accommodating the physical and environmental constraints within the HTS magnet system. Currently available commercial-off-the-shelf (COTS) cryocoolers fall short on achieving the cryogenic cooling requirements that are needed for future tactical HTS magnets. ...

Knowledge of the local three-dimensional environment is critical for effective mission execution, particularly for autonomous vehicles. LIDAR optical ranging and imaging offers the potential to improve ranging speed and accuracy. LIDAR ranging provides a high-fidelity geometric representation of the environment, with reflectivity strength preserving optical contrast, two features very useful for a ...

The Navy of the future will require engineers and scientists trained in the technologies of the future. Soft robotics, inspired by the creatures of the sea, is regarded by many as the future of undersea vehicles. This is with good reason, as marine animals are more efficient and nimbler than our state-of-the-art rigid hulled vessels. The jellyfish, for instance, has the lowest energetic cost of tr ...